Explaining the outmigration of Montana's college-educated workers.

• Author: Ward, Bryce
• Position: HIGHER EDUCATION

Montanans love Montana. A recent Gallup poll asked whether or not respondents believed that their state was the best, or one of the best, states in which to live. Seventy-seven percent of Montanans chose their home state. This tied Alaska for the highest percentage. In contrast, fewer than 20 percent of people in Rhode Island and Illinois think that their state is one of the best places to live.

Non-Montanans also like Montana. Between 2010 and 2014, 20,502 more people moved into the state than moved out.

Montana's net migration rate--the number of net migrants per 1,000 initial residents--ranked 13th among all states over this period, was three times as fast as the median state (Louisiana), and was on par with states like Massachusetts, Tennessee, South Dakota and Oregon.

To an economist, this indicates that Montana's economy is healthy. Within the United States, people are able to live where they want and if people want to live in your state, then chances are, your state's economy is good. For one group, though, Montana appears less desirable --the college-educated, and particularly the young and college-educated.

For the past two decades, Montana has experienced a slight out-migration of college graduates. Two facts help illustrate this. First, the number of people currently living in Montana with a college degree (approximately 200,000) is less than the number of people born in Montana who have obtained a college degree (221,000). Second, the growth in the number of people with a college degree living in Montana is less than the number of college degrees produced by Montana colleges. Since 1990, Montana colleges have produced 120,000 bachelor's degrees, but Montana's college-educated population has only grown by 97,500.

Data collected by the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS) show this out-migration directly (albeit with a large margin of error). The ACS asked people whether they had moved within the past year. Between 2008 and 2012, 564 more college graduates moved out of Montana each year than moved in. During this period, Montana's net migration rate (the number of net migrants per 1,000 initial residents) for college graduates was the seventh lowest in the country. And migration skews higher for college-educated Montanans under the age of 35. Among this group, nearly 1,100 more people moved out of Montana than moved in each year. Montana's net migration rate for college graduates under age 35 ranks 48th--topped only by...